


100 Activities To Do As A Couple

by PineconeTrinklebriar



Series: Nightlights [4]
Category: Undertale (Video Game)
Genre: Bad Puns, Cute, Domestic Fluff, Drinking Games, Established Relationship, F/M, Ferris Wheels, Fluff, Ghost Tour, Halloween Costumes, Healthy Relationships, M/M, Mentions of Sex, Minor Injuries, Paranormal Investigators, Pranks and Practical Jokes, Prejudice Against Monsters (Undertale), Some angst, Swearing, Working Out Together, couple's competition, not graphic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-22
Updated: 2020-11-22
Packaged: 2021-03-09 18:20:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 17,645
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27670585
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PineconeTrinklebriar/pseuds/PineconeTrinklebriar
Summary: You and Stretch enter a contest to decide who is the superior couple. When your overly competitive Former Captains of the Royal Guard get involved, it becomes an all-out war to see who will hold the title of Most Superior Couple for a year.
Relationships: Papyrus/Papyrus (Undertale), Sans (Swapfell)/Reader, Sans/Sans (Undertale)
Series: Nightlights [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1994629
Comments: 18
Kudos: 17





	1. So It Begins [September - December]

**Author's Note:**

> Based on a comments conversation with @FlyWithSerenity on this chapter of Comfortember 2020! I've been working on this since that inspiration, so I'm SUPER excited to finally be ready to post it. Let's just say it got a little longer than I expected it, but I'm pretty happy with it :)
> 
> TW: Mentions of sexy times (non-graphic), some small injuries, one scene of drunkenness, the appearance of a knife, prejudice against monsters

**SEPTEMBER**

**Sans + Ellie: 0 items complete**

**Edge + Stretch: 0 items complete**

“The rules are simple,” Stretch said as he poured a glass of what you could only imagine was Edge’s very expensive wine. “One hundred activities. Whichever couple completes the list first is the superior couple for one calendar year. After that, a new winner will be declared in whatever way we see fit.”

“And this is the list?” you asked skeptically, holding up a glossy magazine that boasted _20 Ways to Make Your Man Scream!_. “Her World! Magazine?”

Stretch shrugged. “Some of the writing’s snappy. Ya want in or what?”

“What if there’s an item we can’t complete?” you asked. “It’s no fun if it's an automatic loss, and there’s some stuff on here that… Well, let’s just say that Sans isn’t fond of getting sand in his pelvic cavity and I can’t imagine that Edge would be either.”

“You make a good point. Solutions?”

“How about…” you paused and thought for a minute, then continued. “How about the other couple gets to replace the item?”

“Pfft, like that’ll be fair.”

“Well there’d be rules. It has to be reasonable for one, and it can’t be weird sex stuff because I don’t want either of us to have any say in the other’s sex life.”

“What if ya don’t wanna do the replacement?” Stretch wondered.

“Um… Two consequences? Like, you get a new one, but you also get a second task?”

“Sounds good to me.”

“What about cheating?” you asked.

“You get two tasks as punishment?” Stretch suggested.

“Sure," you agreed. "Okay, and we would have to do pictures."

Stretch raised a brow. "You want pics of me and Edge doing item…" he paused to tap the glossy list "58?"

You blanched at the idea of pictures of _that._ "No sexytimes pictures!" you squeaked. "But any, like, event requires photographic evidence."

"Fine, fine. Twitter'll love it," Stretch said.

"You know someday that Twitter cult is gonna be the death of you."

Stretch snorted. "More like they'll help me take over the world. So. Ya in?"

You nodded. "Why the hell not? But it doesn’t start until November 2nd. October sucks for the Scooby Gang and it wouldn’t be fair.”

“Why not the first?”

“That’s my anniversary and I intend to spend it sleeping off October and then doing very dirty things with my skeleton.”

Stretch smiled slyly and held out his hand. “Deal. May the best couple win.”

You took his hand and matched his smile. “I intend to.”

**NOVEMBER 15TH**

**Sans + Ellie: 12 items complete**

**Edge + Stretch: 7 items complete**

“I cannot believe that you talked me into this.” Sans was up to his elbows in squelching wet clay, trying to shape it into something that resembled literally anything at this point.

“We should not have fallen in love with such persuasive people,” Edge agreed. He was trying to pick clay out from between his phalanges.

“Look, it was either this or each of us set up double dates on our own,” you pointed out. “This way no one has to try to go on a double date with Red and Comic.”

“You know that I love my brother and that I love to win,” Edge said,”but if I had to try to take him and his collared out into public to win this contest, I would simply surrender instead.”

“Yeah, they’re not exactly toilet trained,” Stretch agreed.

“They’ve been known to bite,” Sans added.

You laughed, but your laughter was immediately stifled by a splatter of clay to the face. Stretch was looking at you with horror. “What the fuck?” you sputtered.

“Sorry! I lost control of it and it flew off the wheel!” he squeaked.

“You know what this means,” you said coolly.

“Ellie--” Stretch stopped talking when a chunk of clay flew into his eye socket. “Oh! This is war, Eleanor! War!”

You laughed as he flung more clay at you. You ducked behind Sans, letting him take the brunt of the attack. He squawked in outrage and retaliated. The three of you flung clay for a bit before Stretch noticed that his beloved husband had slipped off to the side to avoid the clay fight.

“No way babe!” Stretch yelled, throwing himself into Edge and subsequently smearing clay all over his sweater. He squealed as Edge threw him over his shoulder and tickled him.

“Excuse me!” an angry voice said. You all froze and looked up to see an angry human woman standing over the three of you. “This behavior is unacceptable! I’m going to have to ask you to leave!”

Your three skeletal companions had the wisdom to look sheepish at least. “We’re sorry, ma’am,” you said sweetly.

“I’m sure you are,” she sniffed. “Get. Out.”

The four of you left without any new clay pots but none of you cared. After all, the point was to mark another item off the list and the fun you had was just a bonus.

**DECEMBER 6TH**

**Sans + Ellie: 38 items complete**

**Edge + Stretch: 36 items complete**

The fair was absolutely horrifying for Sans, what with the greasy food and excitable humans everywhere. His only saving grace was that Edge clearly hated it as much as he did. Their significant others, however, both seemed enchanted with it. You each had a cup of hot chocolate and were chattering away about gods only knew what. 

The things he did for you.

Well, the things they both did for you and Stretch. They'd perhaps altered the Gyftmas Festival plans a tad to include the huge Ferris wheel rising out of the center of the fair in order to accommodate getting item 76 on the list: Kiss at the top of the Ferris wheel. Fortunately, the ride seemed to be a huge hit with monsters and humans alike. 

You and Sans got your kiss first thing; you were concerned about sabotage so you insisted the two of you arrive early and get it taken care of straight away. Sans had to laugh a little at how attractive he found your total disregard of romance in favor of winning a competition with your best friends. 

But your competitive spirit was what drew him to you to begin with, wasn't it?

He caught your hand as the two of you walked Stretch and Edge to the Ferris wheel for their turn, but you weaseled out of his grasp the instant the wheel began moving. "Love…?" He asked, trailing after you. You waved him off as you approached the pimply human running the ride.

"Ryan!" you said with a huge grin. "How are ya?"

"Fine, fine," he said. "Why ain't there magic face cream, ya know?"

"Them's the breaks my dude. So. The plan?"

"And you brought the payment?"

You scoffed. "Course I did." You fished around in one of the magic pockets in your jacket to produce a small vial. "One potion of alertness, guaranteed to get you through finals." 

"Thanks," he said, accepting the vial and slipping it into his own apparently magic jacket. 

You slipped back over to Sans and took his hand again. "Who's your friend?" he asked, trying to keep his voice pleasantly neutral.

He, of course, didn't fool you a bit. "He's one of Frisk's little mage buddies," you said. "Used to babysit him, too."

Well, that took care of one worry he didn't know he had. "And what were you paying him for?"

You laughed. "Just watch."

So he watched. The wheel went about a quarter of a turn when the music suddenly sounded warped. Then, the whole thing screeched to a halt. Sans automatically scanned for danger and for Edge and Stretch. He was relieved to find them safe on a cart about two-thirds of the way up.

"Sorry folks," Ryan said into a microphone. "Looks like we got an electrical issue down here. Gonna take a bit to fix, but you should be totally safe! I do have to, uh, say though: If we have any friends who can teleport, please don’t. It could destabilize the whole thing. So just… Sit tight."

Sans turned and gaped at you. “Did you… Did you sabotage a Ferris wheel to win a couples contest with our two best friends?”

You turned a little pink then shrugged. “Um… I mean, it’s not actually broken? I wouldn’t put anyone in actual danger or any--”

You were interrupted by Sans pulling you in for a deep kiss. When he finally broke away, you were looking up at him with a mixture of awe and love. “I love you so much,” he said emphatically.

“You too,” you said.

The two of you stood together to watch the progress on the Ferris wheel. It only sat still for a few minutes before it creaked to life and started to move in the opposite direction. Sans watched in growing awe as Stretch and Edge’s car slowly made its way to the starting platform without ever passing the top point of the Ferris wheel. 

Truthfully, Sans was never a monster who enjoyed public displays of affection. Nothing about life in Swapfell had prepared him to ever want such things. But in that moment, the moment that he saw your maniacal genius, he wanted nothing more than to kiss you senseless right there. You moved faster than he did, though, and were already dashing up to the platform, full of false concern, to check on Edge and Stretch as they climbed out of the cart.

“You two!” Stretch yelled accusingly as he scrambled out. His eyes were strobing orange. “You cheaters!”

“Problem?” you asked, playing the part of an innocent bystander beautifully.

“I know this is you! You! You trapped us up there!”

“You can teleport!” you yelled right back, stepping up toe-to-toe with the furious seven foot tall skeleton.

“Edge hates teleporting and apparently it would have destroyed the whole wheel!”

“You’re perfectly fine! You’re just going to have to be more creative to win!”

“You are unbelievable! You’ve taken this too far, Ellie!”  
“You’re just pissed you didn’t think of it!”

Stretch balled his fists up at his side and stomped a foot. “You’re damn right I’m pissed I didn’t think of it!” He let Edge pull him into his arms sullenly.

“You know this means war,” Edge said.

Sans stepped up and wrapped an arm around you. “Bring it, edgelord. Bring it,” he said with a toothy grin.

**DECEMBER 13TH**

**Sans + Ellie: 41 items complete**

**Edge + Stretch: 43 items complete**

“I would like to state for any and all records that I am not having sex on a beach,” Edge declared primly. He didn’t even look up from the laptop.

“But this is what will push us over the edge, babe!” Stretch begged. “You know Sans and El will be too uptight to do it but we can make this happen!”

“No.”

“But--”

“I said no. Text Ellie and tell her that she and Sans can choose a new item for us.”

“Edge--”

“I said no.”

**DECEMBER 13TH**

**Sans + Ellie: 41 items complete**

**Edge + Stretch: 43 items complete**

“Sans!”

“We are not having sex on the beach,” Sans said boredly, not looking up from his laptop. He kept tap, tap, tapping away on the keyboard.

“Babe, they’ll get to pick something for us.”

“That’s fine.”

“What if it’s worse?”

Sans paused at that. “Didn’t you set a rule about no demanding sexual activities because it’s ‘gross’?”

“Yeah, but--”

“Then it can’t be worse. Tell them to choose a new item for us as well.”

“You could be more fun, you know.”

“I love you, too, dear.”

**DECEMBER 14TH**

**Sans + Ellie: 42 items complete**

**Edge + Stretch: 43 items complete**

“Please tell me you didn’t make a sex chart for my house.” You crossed your arms and stared daggers at your boyfriend’s newest craft project.

“I don’t know how you expect to complete item number 58--get ‘naughty’ in every room in your home--without some sort of checklist system.”

“Sans, it’s creepy. Where are you thinking you’re even going to hang that? Because I promise that you won’t be hanging that on my fridge.”

Sans paused and looked over the chart. “How about your library? No one goes in there.”

“Except Alphys!”

“You’re right. I would hate for Undyne to discover this little arrangement. The last thing we need is another couple to join the competition.”

“I think we can just… remember where we’ve had sex.”

Sans made a rude snorting sound and you narrowed your eyes dangerously. “Or maybe we get Stretch and Edge to make us a new challenge again because we won’t be having sex for a while if you put that somewhere that literally anyone else will see it.”

“Fine. Fine! But if we lose track we’ll have to start over.”

You slunk towards him, giving him the ol’ bedroom (and every other room in your house, apparently) eyes. “You mean we’d have to have sex again? Oh no, whatever will I do? I can’t imagine a worse fate.”

The fact that Sans’s honest laughter is one of your favorite sounds was the last coherent thought you had before you were able to check the living room off of your brand new list.

**DECEMBER 22ND**

**Sans + Ellie: 56 items complete**

**Edge + Stretch: 55 items complete**

“I think it’s going well,” you observed as you leaned against the bobbing for apples tub.

“Yeah, people seem into it, even if Blue called it an ‘abomination’ to have a Halloween party in December,” Stretch agreed. 

“Well, how else were we going to get ‘couples costumes’ in a reasonable amount of time? We can’t wait a fucking year to finish this challenge! My soul can’t take the constant stress!”

“I’m pretty sure the point is to reduce stress and increase love between you and your partner,” Stretch pointed out. 

“Yeah, yeah. How’s it going with the edgelord then?” you asked with a grin.

Stretch made a rude noise but then laughed. “Right, dragging the two most competitive people in the multiverse into a competition might have been a bad call. Some of the best sex of my life, though,” he said philosophically.

“Yeah? Sans tried to make us a chart for my house.”

Stretch let out a bark of surprised laughter, then doubled over and continued laughing harder. “He made a chart?” he wheezed.

“Yes, yes, it’s all very funny,” Sans said, suddenly sweeping in from the kitchen. His perfect white suite looked gorgeous on him, even with the fake blood that you’d splattered all over it. “I’m looking for my victim, though. Papyrus is demanding pictures.”

“You better come, too,” you said to Stretch as you let Sans grab your hand and lead you out into the living room. You grinned like a maniac at all of your friends in costumes in December. Papyrus established the rule that no one was allowed to wear what they’d worn for Halloween just a few months ago, so everyone was in hasty joke costumes. Like you and your beau, for example. He spent gods knows how many hours scouring the internet for an idea before appearing in your room at 2 a.m. (luckily you were awake and not armed) and announcing that you would be going as “the victim of his bad jokes”. So you were wearing a classy dress splattered with fake blood and you both thought you were a hilarious delight.

Stretch and Edge made you smile just as much and you couldn’t imagine what exchange of goods and/or services got Edge into the tight leather ensemble with a giant cardboard cut out of a magnet hung around his neck, but you could admit that he looked scrumptious like that. Stretch, however, looked insane. He waddled past you in a large fluffy yellow costume that he described as a chicken, though you thought that was being a little charitable. You’d just about broken a rib laughing when Edge declared them a “chick magnet” in his even, business-like voice. Heck, even Comic and Red got into the festivities; they’d both arrived wearing t-shirts that said “Thanks” on them. “The Grateful Dead,” Sans had whispered to you, earning another hearty guffaw. 

Papyrus was indeed shuffling family members around, trading folks in and out of the Designated Picture Spot, under a banner that said, “Merry Christmas!” but Christmas was crossed out and replaced with “Halloween” in Stretch’s messy scrawl. He was wearing Stretch’s Jack Skellington costume since Edge refused to be Sally and Papyrus didn’t need to wear a couple’s costume to win a bet. “This way, Friend Ellie and Purple Brother!” Paps called as he ushered Blue away. You noted that Blue was wearing a costume that looked suspiciously like Sally, but you hadn’t gotten a chance to talk to him yet to confirm. 

Obediently, you stood under the banner with Sans. He positioned you so it looked like you’d swooned into his arms, an unsuspecting victim of his terrible humor. “Make sure to send us that, will you, Paps?” you asked after he announced that he got the shot.

“Of course; it will be uploaded to the family cloud account along with all of our other memories! Time for everyone in couple’s costumes to make a memory together!” He pressed the camera into Mutt’s hands and said, “Would you mind to take the photographs, Shy Me?”

“No prob, Paps.” Mutt stepped up while Papyrus gathered all the wayward skellies. Your heart did a little flip when Blue did stand next to Papyrus for the picture. You nudged Sans and pointed but he just rolled his eye lights at you. Spoil sport.

Everyone managed to get through the pictures without too much grumbling. Somewhere along the way, booze appeared in Red’s hand and was passed around between the Lazy Skeleton Crew a bit. Mars was practically unconscious on Edge’s sofa when someone suggested playing Never Have I Ever. Jupiter was especially excited about the idea, which is probably why anyone bothered to agree to it to begin with. “I’ve never played this game, but all of the human movies talk about it!” he said with glee as everyone settled into a circle.

You leaned on Sans pretty heavily; Mutt had made sure that you got a fair amount of booze while they were passing it around. You weren’t sure what it was but it was strong. You felt pleasantly tipsy, which is exactly how you’re supposed to feel at a Halloween party. “We should do this every year,” you told Sans emphatically. “We never get to have Halloween parties at Halloween because our jobs suck, but this one is perfect!”

“How much did you have to drink?” he asked lightly.

“Just enough,” you told him and patted his face. “Just enough.”

“I’ll go first!” Jupiter declared. He grabbed the bottle from his brother and said, “Never have I ever… sang in the rain?” Everyone thought about it while the bottle was passed around. You drank; you were old enough that you probably had belted some tunes while in the rain. Stretch joined you, as did Papyrus. 

“Heh. Pretty tame, bro,” Mars said, taking the bottle when it came back around to him. “Never have I ever… _not_ eaten a month old cheeseburger I found in my room.”

Groans and cries of distaste rang out around the circle and only Red drank to that one. He shrugged and simply said, “Food’s food.” He kept the bottle and took his turn. “Never have I ever… been too chicken ta just ask my mate ta move in wit’ me.”

Everyone looked around a little awkwardly and it had to be the alcohol making you think that Sans was blushing. Luckily you didn’t get a chance to overthink it because Comic was grabbing the bottle and smacking Red on the back of the head. “Liar; I had to move myself in and ya almost threw me out on the street! Never have I ever lied in a game of never have I ever just to be a dick.”

A surprising amount of skeletons drank to that one and you did too. Again, your life had just been so damn long; you couldn’t be expected to remember _every_ _time_ you played Never Have I Ever. Papyrus happily accepted the bottle from his brother and smiled at the circle. “Never have I ever… had sex with a skeleton!” The whole circle erupted, the older brothers with coughs and general choking sounds and the younger brothers with gleeful laughter. “Give it ‘ere,” you said, grabbing the bottle and pulling a long drink. “We made a chart,” you said with a smirk. Sans snatched it from you and handed it off to Stretch, who also took a long swig. Edge rolled his eye lights but took a sip before passing it to Red who downed nearly half the bottle. Sans took a hearty sip, then passed it across his brother to Mars. Surprisingly, he didn’t drink, but more surprisingly, Jupiter and Blue both did. “Who?” Stretch and Mars both demanded in unison, but their younger brothers both laughed it off. 

You tuned out the next couple of rounds--Blue with something about knots and Edge with something about royal guarding that made Sans and Blue drink but no one else. You had practically crawled into Sans’s lap by the time Stretch ended up with the bottle beside you. You felt a little weird, like you were too hot and your magic was unsettled and churning. You pressed your face against his blessedly cool cervical vertebrae and sighed into the coolness. Maybe that last long drink was a bad call…

Stretch was tapping you with the bottle. “Earth to Ellie! I said never have I ever been to California and I know you’ve gone.”

You took the bottle from him and took a small sip. It nearly came back up when it reached your stomach and you shoved the bottle into Sans’s hand like it was on fire. You felt more than saw him take a sip as you snuggled back up against him, but too soon the bottle was back in your lap. “Your turn, love,” Sans said gently into your ear. You tried to sit up but everything was swirly. You felt a strong arm wrap around you and the bottle was gone again. “Love?” Sans said again. 

You couldn’t think of a response other than puking or groaning, so you went with groaning.

“What the hell was in that?” Sans asked over you.

The voices were sort of garbled after that and you fell asleep against Sans.

The next thing you knew, you were laying in a soft bed. More specifically, your soft bed. There were two cats curled up at your feet and a glance out the window told you that it was morning. You tried to sit up but failed when your head started pounding. You moaned and flopped back against the pillows.

“Love?”

You shifted a bit so you could see that Sans was sitting in a chair by your bed with Danny Butterman the Pigeon perched on his shoulder. “I’m dying,” you informed him.

He chuckled. “No, no. You’ve probably got a terrible hangover, though. Red didn’t realize that mages have the same alcohol tolerance of humans and the drink he gave you was far too strong. You’ll be alright. Can I get you anything?”

“Water? And maybe, like, a rock to my head.”

He held out a bottle of water and you drank nearly the whole thing in one gulp. Satisfied with that, he gently tapped Zuko out of the way so he could climb into the bed beside you. You offered a hand and he took it. You grimaced up at him. “Sorry,” you said.

“For?”

“For getting black out drunk at our Halloween party.”

“There’s no reason to be sorry for that, love, although I imagine that your head is sorry that you did.”

“Yeah,” you said with feeling.

“Besides, this allows me to complete Item number 12 on the list with you,” he said.

“Item 12?”

“Don’t get out of bed all day,” he said with a laugh.

“I’m pretty sure it doesn’t mean just lay in bed and watch me be miserable,” you pointed out.

“I’m pretty confident that the items on the list are open to interpretation and I am interpreting this one as being fulfilled by us lying here and watching Netflix all day.”

“You’re the best, babe,” you said.

“I beg to differ,” he said and gently pressed a kiss to your cheek before grabbing the remote to start on Item 12.


	2. Ghosts & the PTO [January - February]

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The competition continues with the first refusal to complete an item, some good ol' ghost times, and Ellie feeling the need to fight a PTO mom.

**JANUARY 3RD**

**Sans + Ellie: 57 items complete**

**Edge + Stretch: 58 items complete**

“Okay,” you said, hands held up placatingly between the Captains of the Royal Guard and the large metal door, “competitiveness is one thing but this is, like, beyond. Babe, this is not a good idea.”

Sans’s eye lights seemed cold as he looked at you. “We’re going to win this,” he said.

“I dunno; I’m kinda with El on this one,” Stretch said. “It’s kind of a big commitment just for a competition.”

“Do you want to win or not?” Edge said.

You and Stretch exchanged A Look, then stepped out of the way of the Fluffy Hearts Shelter. Edge shoved the door open and he and Sans led your group into the lobby. You saw the moment that the smell of animal hit your handsome Type A personalities; both of them staggered a bit.

A pretty human woman was working the main desk. She looked up at the four of you and smiled and if she was surprised to see two very stiff-looking skeletons, a slouchy one, and a mage she gave no indication. “Hi!” she said happily. “Can I help you?”

“Yes,” Sans said stiffly. “We are here to ‘adopt a pet.’”

“That’s great! What kind were you thinking?”

“What are the options?” Edge asked.

“Well, we mostly have dogs and cats, though we do have a couple of guinea pigs that just came in yesterday.”

“I think cats,” Sans said. He gestured to you. “My datemate has cats and they seem perfectly lovely.”

“I cannot choose cats,” Edge said, “so I will have to see the dogs.”

“No problem! We can tour both areas and you can let me know if anyone interests you!” The human flounced out from behind the desk and directed you to a small room. Behind the door, you could hear desperate mewing. “This is the cat room,” she said.

“I’m gonna sit this one out,” Stretch said. He pulled his phone out of his pocket and tried very hard to not look terrified.

“Oh,” the woman said, “would you like to see the dogs? I can take you back there while your friend peruses the cats.”

“That would be wonderful. Thank you,” Edge said.

Stretch threw you one last desperate look before following Edge and the woman down a hallway and disappearing around a corner. Sans squared his shoulders and reached for the door, but you caught his hand before he could push it open. “Babe, getting a pet for a bet is a bad call,” you said gently. “This is a time to admit defeat and let Edge and Stretch pick a different challenge for us.”

“There’s no reason that we can’t get another cat,” he said stiffly.

“Is this cat gonna live at your house? You know that you’d have to get a litter box, right? They have to poop somewhere. And it might get on your counters. Or claw the furniture.”

Sans blinked at you like he really had never considered any of the things you were telling him. “It could live at your house?” he tried.

You laughed. “Sorry, bud, no can do. I got lucky with two cats that don’t eat birds; I cannot imagine that I’ll get lucky with a third one.” You leaned up and kissed his cheek softly. “If you really want a pet, I’m all for you getting one, but you need to actually want one, not be trying to win a bet.”

Sans sighed. “I suppose you’re right. I’m already the father of three lovely furry children and I just don’t think I am ready for a fourth.”

“Ain’t no reason to be ashamed of that,” you said happily. 

He smiled at you and caught your hand just as you heard a yell from the direction that Edge and Stretch went. You exchanged a quick glance and hustled down the hallway. It led to another metal door that you pushed open and entered a room full of dog kennels. The barking was nearly deafening. The human looked terrified and Stretch was cowering behind Edge, whose fingers were glowing red.

Wait.

“Edge, where the hell is your other hand?” you yelled, icy worry flooding your chest.

“The dog took it!” Stretch screamed.

“Holy shit!” you said. “Sans?”

“‘Sans?’” your loving boyfriend parroted back at you. “What do you want me to do about it?”

“I don’t know! Do some royal guard shit and get his hand back!”

“Royal guard shit?”

“Nevermind,” Edge said briskly. “I’ve got it.” He held out his remaining hand and the dog’s soul pinged blue. He pushed it away from the hand, then cautiously leaned into the kennel and grabbed it.

“We gotta get you medical help now!” you said, voice in a near-panic. “A dog ripped your hand off!”

All three skeletons looked at you like you were crazy. “It barely touched my HP,” Edge said. “I’m sure some healing will take care of it.”

“What?!”

Edge held the hand up to his arm stub and you watched in awe as it was sucked back onto the arm as if they were both magnetic. He flexed his fingers and grimaced, then held the hand out dutifully for Stretch to inspect and heal.

“You guys can just detach parts of your body and reattach them,” you said flatly.

“Yes?” Sans said. “You didn’t know?”

“Why would I just know that? You’ve definitely never mentioned you can do that!”

“Well, it’s not comfortable but yes, skeletons can do that.”

“So he’s okay?” the human woman asked, tears still running down her cheeks. “He’s not hurt?”

All four of you kind of forgot she existed. “Oh,” Edge said. “Yes, I am fine. Thank you for your concern.”

The human slumped in relief. “Well, that’s great.”

“I don’t think we’re adopting today,” Stretch said. “Not that you and your shelter aren’t lovely! But! I don’t think we’re ready.”

“I understand. You shouldn’t adopt unless you’re ready to take care of the animal.”

She led you back to the front and smiled and waved at you as you and Stretch led your captains out of the building. “So,” you said once you cleared the building, “alternate item for both teams on that one?”

“Alternate items,” Edge agreed.

**JANUARY 23RD**

**Sans + Ellie: 61 items complete**

**Edge + Stretch: 59 items complete**

It was a really good plan, knocking out two items in one evening jaunt. Item 42, “Explore a new area of your city” and Item 26 “Try a new restaurant together” worked perfectly if Sans teleported you to the closest place he knew the location of and then the two of you walked through the winding streets of downtown Ebbott. Despite the brilliance of your plan, it’d been hard to get Sans to agree to it. His magic was still iffy after the whole vampire incident so he was a touch nervous about being in a new area without backup. Reading over the low crime rates soothed him a little and you agreed to throw your mission coat (the one with all the magic pockets that concealed all kinds of goodies of the ass-kicking kind) just in case. He was still noticeably stiff, but loosened more and more as you continued through the pleasant streets unaccosted. 

“Stretch hasn’t even tried this place yet,” you told him. Stretch was the unofficial mascot of monsters and the one that found most of the monster-friendly establishments in the city. He didn’t work for the Embassy (outside of his role as your team’s tech boy) but he still did the monster community some solids by finding really good businesses for them to venture to. This little place was too new for him to have discovered just yet, though, so you and Sans got to be the first into it. It bragged that it had a monster as a cook and its food was infused with magic. You couldn’t help rolling your eyes at the gimmick; mages had been feeding humans magic-infused food for literal centuries at this point. You could buy it at Trader Joe’s. But the place still sounded good, so the two of you decided to give it a shot.

It turned out to be a pretty delicious call. They were pumped to have their first monster customer so they pulled out all the stops and brought you a little bit of everything. And boy did they offer a little bit of everything! There were homey options like mac and cheese and soups right alongside various ethnic options that all tasted delicious. Your waiter, a jolly human with a braided beard and a bit of an unplaceable accent, hung near enough to your table to tell you about the food but somehow managed to not be annoying about it at the same time. You had to admit that you could stand to have more wantons that were laced with mood lifting magic, not enough to actually force you into a different mood (that was super illegal) but enough to enhance any happiness already there. Sans seemed to like the spicy yellow curry that had light healing magic, enough to make you feel massaged as you ate it. When it was time for the bill, the human laughed and waved it off, simply stating that he hoped you came back and told your friends. You promised that you would (and you would certainly, especially now that Sans could teleport there instead of taking the long way) and made your way back out into the streets.

While you were inside, a blanket of darkness had fallen over the city. You slipped your hand into Sans’s, pleasantly full and still buzzing from the various magicks that were dancing in your soul. He seemed happy, too, his eye lights bright. He kept glancing up at the sky and smiling that little smile that you loved so much. “What is it?” you finally asked after a block.

“Sorry,” he said meekly, “it’s just that there was this movie that we found in the dump, back before we even lived in Snowdin.” So he was very young then, if he was still living in New Home. “It was an old film, I know now. It had a scene very much like this one, with the protagonist and--”

An out of place footstep from an alley that you were passing cut him off. His skull whipped around to look towards the noise and, almost simultaneously, a hand grabbed your other arm. “Come ‘ere,” a gruff voice said from the darkness. 

The insistent tug threw you off balance and you tripped into the alley. Another thick hand caught you and both hands tightened on your shoulders. You looked up into the face of a human man, a little short and very gruff. He looked like every pirate you’d ever met, except that he was wearing dirty blue jeans and a hoodie instead of pirate clothes. He even sported one glass eye. He looked down at you and chuckled. It wasn’t a pleasant sound. “Gotcha, mage.”

“Let go,” you said firmly. You’d use magic if you had to, but you hated to just randomly kill some dude if you didn’t have to. But shit he needed to let go of you! This was a nice night and he was going to ruin it by getting Sans’s LV all riled up. He needed to let go  _ now _ , and you had no idea how to make him other than knocking him on his ass with magic.

“The lady told you to let go,” Sans said coldly. You felt his magic flaring behind you.

“What’re ya gonna do about it, monster?” the man snarled, grounding out the last word like it was the ultimate insult. “You’ve got no right to ‘er, even if she is a dirty monster fu--”

And that was enough. You shot a shield out and hit him in the chest. It was enough to push him backward and force him to let go of you. He staggered and fell onto his rear, his face contorting into a visage of anger. He fiddled with something at his side, what was that…?

“You’re going to want to put the knife down,” Sans said coolly. “I would hate for the authorities to arrive while you’re pulling a knife on a young lady and her escort.”

You immediately threw up a shield between the man and you which was fortunate because he chose that moment to snarl and lunge. Instead of managing to slice you with the knife he simply hit the shield and bounced backwards. “You bitch!” he growled and tried again, once again encountering your shield.

“Seriously, man. Stop it. You just look stupid, like a cat that can’t figure out the window’s closed,” you said. “Sans, should we just teleport?”

“No, that won’t be necessary.”

You were about to ask him why when a pop of teleportation revealed the reason. Two skeletons that were so similar but so different from your boyfriend stepped out of the void and into the space behind you. “Hiya,” Comic said with a grin.

“We ‘eard that someone was tryin’ ta knife a mage an’ a monster,” Red said, all pleasant and business-like. If the guy bought that act then he deserved what came next.

“Yes, that’s right,” Sans said. “This gentleman right here. He grabbed Eleanor and tried to drag her into the alley, grabbed ahold and wouldn’t let go when she asked, and then attacked us with the knife that you can see he is holding.”

Red stepped forward making a tsk-ing noise. “Sir, do ya know how the law operates vis a vis humans who attack monsters?”

In response, the man tried to spit at Red, but your shield blocked it. “Cat. With a window,” you muttered at him.

“That ain’t nice! If ya don’ know, ya could always ask.” He sauntered up next to the shield and you dropped it for him. The man’s eyes widened as Red approached him, seemingly unbothered by the knife he still held. “See, monsters get first dibs at anyone who attacks our own. Then,” he gestured to you, “the Mage Council gets ‘em if they messed with a mage. Since ya did both, ya’re goin’ to deal with both parties, then your own people’ll getcha for at least breakin’ the peace agreement.”

He waved his hand and the knife flew out of his hand and clattered to the ground in front of Comic. The man shrieked and scooted back from Red more. “Don’ touch me! I was paid! Paid ta get--” Red grabbed him and yanked him into the void before he could finish his thought. Comic had the knife floating by him with blue magic when he approached the two of you. “Want a lift home?” he asked.

“We’ll be fine,” Sans said shortly.

Comic opened his mouth to argue, then shook his head. “Alrighty then. I’mma get this to the Embassy. Looks like I got some judgin’ ta do.” He leaned a little closer to say something to Sans too soft for you to hear, but Sans nodded then Comic disappeared.

“What was that?” you asked.

“Racist asshole?” Sans suggested.

“Yeah, but what did Comic just say?”

Sans sighed and looked away. “If I said that I will tell you when the time is right, would that satisfy? I promise I’m not trying to hide things from you, but this is… I need to handle some things before I’m ready to talk about it.” He looked small as he waited for your judgement, and you knew that he would tell you if you insisted, even though he just said he wasn’t ready to talk about it. 

Well, you kept saying that you loved and trusted him. Time to put all those gooshy feelings to work.

“Okay,” you said simply. You wrapped your arm around his so that you were clutched even tighter to him than you had been before, taking comfort from his strong grip on you. “What were you saying about that movie? The one you had Underground?”

He smiled at you, his face flooding with relief. You smiled back and waited for him to tell you his story about the movie, his story about whatever was going on with Comic, whatever else he had hidden away. You had a lifetime together for each of you to say everything you kept secret; there was no reason you needed to get it all out tonight. You trusted him.

The two of you walked through the streets of downtown Ebbott and it was absolutely perfect.

**FEBRUARY 12TH**

**Sans + Ellie: 70 items complete**

**Edge + Stretch: 71 items complete**

“I’m so excited!” Papyrus exclaimed, clutching at Blue’s arm tightly.

Blue giggled. “This is going to be fun.”

“Please try not to awaken any actual alliumedes that may be present on this ghost tour,” Edge said. “If we have to call in the Scooby Gang, Black and Ellie will try to mark ‘ghost tour’ off of their list as well.”

“Aw, babe, don’ be such a  _ gloomy ghou _ l,” Stretch said with a grin. “It must be  _ haunting _ you how much paperwork you could be doing, but I’m  _ trick-led _ pink that you’re here.”

“Stretchy Me, I would appreciate it if you did not ruin this otherwise pleasantly spooky evening with your terrible sense of humor,” Papyrus scolded.

Stretch rolled his eye lights but didn’t say anything. For whatever reason, his bro wanted to invite Papyrus, so Papyrus was here. Stretch liked him, he really did, but he was just… You could never tell if Paps was playing the dumb card or if he geniunely just didn’t get what was going on. Like calling him ‘stretchy me.’ It always irked him a little, like he was a copy and Paps was the original. And hell, when all the Science Bros sat down and hashed it out, he probably was a copy but he didn’t  _ feel _ like one, damn it. 

He felt a bony arm loop around his shoulders and looked over at Edge. His better half was smiling a little knowing smile at him. Silent comfort, complete with a skeletal kiss to the top of his skull. He sighed and snuggled against Edge, feeling a bit better. If Edge was a damn copy, Stretch could be too, long as he got to be one with Edge. He’d be a pink flamingo long as Edge was standin’ there with one leg up too.

They approached the large building, Blue and Papyrus with excitement and Stretch and Edge with, eh, less excitement. Taking a ghost tour was a little worrisome when your job involved killing spooks, but Comic and Red took the tour the weekend before and reported that they didn’t see any alliumedes. Plus, Ellie lived through the time frame that this house was allegedly “haunted” from and said it was all bullshit.

‘Course, after that Ferris wheel ordeal Stretch wasn’t sure that Ellie wouldn’t kill them just to win the whole shabang. 

But he didn’t think she’d kill Blue, which was one reason he’d invited his big bro. That, and he felt like maybe he hadn’t been there for his bro as much as he should be. He was spending a lot of time with Paps and, hey, whatever that relationship was, Stretch wanted to support it. The issue was that he didn’t know what the damn relationship was and his bro hadn’t talked to him about it. Blue used to tell him literally everything but since he and Edge shacked up and Blue started galavanting around the world as a diplomat their relationship was a whole lot more… distant? They still saw each other when they were both in New New Home, but it just wasn’t the same.

Anyway, he decided to try more with his big bro. More outings, more stitch n’ bitch, more phone calls. And if his bro had some sort of… thing… going with Paps, then Stretch sure as hell wanted to hear about the less disturbing parts.

And if he were totally honest, he wanted to tell Blue about stuff with Edge. He wanted his captain of the royal guard bro to know what was going on, how happy he was. Blue'd been there for Stretch his whole life, carried his sorry ass when Stretch was so depressed he nearly fell down, through all the resets (even though he didn't remember it), and through all the ups and downs and loopty loops of his relationship with Edge. His bro deserved to see Stretch happy and to be happy himself.

He deserved it.

So Stretch invited him to go on a damn ghost tour.

Ghost tours weren't the most popular pastime in February; the month wasn't exactly prime ghost hunting season so they had the tour mostly to themselves. The old manor was built a few hundred years ago and was allegedly a hotbed of spirit activity due to its sketch history. They were greeted in the impressive entry hall by a smiling human in khaki shorts and a t-shirt that declared that they should follow her for spooks. She smiled warmly and said, "Hello! Welcome to King Manor, the most haunted house in Ebbott! Can I help you?"

"Yes, thank you, we are here for a tour of ghosts!" Papyrus declared. "Edgy me and Stretchy me are in a couple competition that requires it!"

Stretch silently reminded himself that Sans would de-spine him if he smacked Paps on the back of the head. Then Edge’d have to kill him and that’d leave the Underfell bros fighting each other to the death and that would just be a mess...

The woman smiled bigger. "Oh! I think I met one of the other couples in the competition last week!"

"Maybe, but there's only two couples participating," Blue said.

The woman frowned. "Really? Well, ok. Are you ready for the tour?"

The tour itself was pretty basic. They went through each room and learned about the long and convoluted history of the King family. The guide paused appropriately to point out creeks and wind noises that were allegedly the restless dead haunting their place of death.

When they reached the entryway again, the woman paused. "We can conclude the tour there… or I can show you the basement. It's not for the faint of heart!" she warned.

Blue and Edge exchanged a glance then Blue quirked a determined smile at the woman. "We'll see the basement."

She took a deep breath but kept smiling as she directed them to a small door that Stretch mistook for a coat closet when they came in. The woman pushed the door open and Stretch froze. It led to a narrow wooden staircase that was straight out of a horror movie. It gave off "ah hell no" vibes so strong that he wanted to go curl up in bed with Edge and maybe take a nap. He grabbed Edge's hand tight enough to cut off circulation if they had blood. Even Blue and Paps looked a little wary.

"It can be disturbing," the tour guide said gently.

"We are not disturbed!" Edge snapped. He strode forward to the staircase, nudged Stretch behind him, then stepped into the shaky light of the basement stairs. Stretch had to follow him; Edge had a tight grip on his hand and he didn't want to detach it right now. 

The stairs were creaky and Stretch's physics brain scrambled to decide if it could hold three huge skeletons and one small one, plus the human that brought up the rear. 

"This basement was built in the 1700's as a place for Lord Jacob King's experiments. He dreamed of being accepted into the Royal Society of Science. He thought he could open a true portal into hell and prove the existence of the supernatural," the guide chirped happily. "Some even said he succeeded. Others claim he went insane when his only daughter, Maybel, was murdered and that he was trying to build a portal to the afterlife to get her back. She’s one of the spirits that haunts the house to this day!”

Stretch wasn't scared, obviously, but maybe Edge was so he decided to comfort his husband by climbing as much onto his back as he reasonably could. Again, for Edge’s comfort and safety.

"Love--" Edge wheezed as Stretch accidentally choked him, but he was interrupted by a low growl coming from the dark of the basement. He froze and Stretch could see magic gathering at the tips of his phalanges. He shrugged Stretch off and pulled his phone from his pocket and used the allimagic app to scan for the source of the growl. Stretch felt himself get shuffled back a step and ended up pressed against Papyrus while Blue stepped forward to look at Edge's phone. "What's it say?" he asked in a serious tone that Stretch remembered from following him around on patrols way back in Underswap.

"Malicious intent," he replied in an equally authoritative tone, gesturing to the screen of the phone. Stretch peeked over their shoulders and felt his soul stutter a bit when he saw the whole screen lit up red. "Back upstairs," he ordered. The human jumped a bit and stumbled backwards as the skeletons rushed towards her. Back in the entryway, Edge shoved an antique desk in front of the door. Blue was on the phone explaining the situation to probably Black, and Paps stood next to Stretch nervously chewing on the tips of his gloved fingers.

"You ok, Pap?" Stretch asked. 

"I…" Papyrus swallowed hard. "I am ok. I do not care for the app."

"My allimagic app?" Stretch asked. 

" Yes. It has lied to me before and it led to a… frightening situation."

"What's this now?" Stretch asked dumbfounded. "Why didn't you tell me? The Scooby Gang uses that thing to help them survive! If there's a problem with it I need to know!"

Papyrus waved him off. "It was simply Sans and his datemate playing a trick on us but I did nearly fall to my death. And worse, Friend Ellie tried to save me and came even closer to death!"

Stretch blinked at him. "They did wha--"

His line of interrogation was cut off by the pop of teleportation and he felt relief wash over him at the appearance of Mutt, Black, and you. You were all in casual clothes and you and Mutt had a "just woke up" aura around you. He also had Stretch’s computer bag slung over one shoulder.

"'Sup?" you asked calmly, but Stretch didn't miss the knife on your hip.

Edge and Blue took over explaining while you nodded along and Mutt looked bored. Black turned a wary eye on the basement door, then turned back to the guide. "Tell me about the basement. I do not remember hearing of this building having a basement on the tour?”

"It was under renovations," she said. "The restoration team found a doorway hidden in the wall and were working on the room they found inside." 

You rolled your eyes. "Why don't humans ever leave sealed shit sealed? There's always a reason and it's never good.”

"Are you suggesting that King actually found a portal to hell?" the woman asked incredulously.

"Of course not," Black said, "but he most certainly may have summoned an alliumede while trying. What happened to King? How did he die?”

"He actually just disappeared one day! No one knows what happened to him."

"You're joking," you said. "And no one thought maybe he got possessed and sealed in the wall down there?"

The woman looked at you like you were insane. It took her a few seconds to realize that, no, you were actually serious. “Um… No. No one thought that,” she said finally.

Black shook his head and handed her a business card. “Next time your people decide to open a sealed door, please give us a call so that we can make sure there isn’t anything evil lurking behind it and dispose of it if there is.”

“Wait. You’re going back down there?” she squeaked.

“Of course. It’s our job.”

“Wow! You’re so brave!” She rested the palm of her hand on Black’s forearm and Stretch almost laughed out loud about what was coming next. You gave off some serious cat fight vibes over Black.

You stepped forward and wrapped your arm around his in a lightly possessive manner. From the woman’s startled look and Black’s light blush, the gesture didn’t go over their heads. “Yep, so we’re just gonna head down there and see what’s up,” you said coolly. “Don’t let anyones else come down until we give you the okay.”

“We will remain up here and listen in on the laptop,” Edge said. Stretch accepted the bag from Mutt and set up on the main desk. You popped in your earpiece and the three of you headed into the basement.

Edge leaned over Stretch’s shoulder and watched the screen with him. You each had a camera on your jackets that Stretch used to track the environment. It was programmed to send data to the computer constantly, so as soon as you set foot in the basement an alert popped up on the laptop to let him know “high intent detected”, confirming that the app was functioning properly. He glanced over his shoulder and saw that Papyrus and Blue were both standing back beside the human. Keeping out of the way. 

“Huh,” you said through the com, drawing Stretch’s attention back to the laptop, “I really thought this was going to be Comic and Red playing a prank.”

“How would they fake intent?” Black asked.

There was a soft thud and, from the way your camera jerked, Stretch had to assume that Mutt kicked you. “I dunno,” you said. “Just sounds like something they’d do.”

“Sure,” Black said, sounding anything but sure.

“It smells like sulfur and it’s really hot down here,” you said. “Do you guys feel or smell that?”

“Must be the allimagic,” Mutt said.

The cameras showed that you were in front of a stone door with runes carved all around it. Stretch recognized some as representing life, death, and hell, but there were others that he didn’t know. You sighed. “Man, it’s always runes,” you muttered. “These are definitely an attempt at opening a hell portal,” you said. “Can’t say that it would have succeeded, but--”

The growl that they heard earlier interrupted you. Now that they were down there, the sound was very clearly coming from behind the stone door. You sighed again and Black stepped forward. “I’ll take point,” he said. “El, give me a shield. You two flank me and be prepared to fall back if needed.”

“Got it,” you said and the camera flared for a moment before adjusting to your magic. Everything froze for a second, then Black kicked the door open.

The room was fairly large and definitely looked like a horror movie set. There was a huge stone table in the center of the room with deep red stains on it and the floor around it. There was a huge stone archway on one wall, this one coated in dark red stains and even more runes. As soon as the three of you were through the door, you gasped and your shield sputtered out.

“Eleanor?” Black hissed.

He turned and Stretch could see that you sank to the ground and were holding your head in your hands. You let out a low, pained groan. Stretch heard gasps in surround sound as Black, Papyrus, and Blue all gasped at the same time. “Get her out of here,” Black ordered Mutt, who rushed forward to grab your arm.

“Wait!” you gasped. Both skeletons froze and waited. “This room is a Laqueum Magus. It’s like one of those finger traps but for mages; once I'm in, it won't let me out until it drains my magic dry. We have to find the source or--” You stopped talking as the runes on the archway began to glow a bright red. “Shit,” you muttered. “It’s using my magic to open a portal.”

“What is?” Black asked. “Stretch, what can you tell us?”

Stretch was already looking up your stupid mage trap, absorbing information as quickly as he could. It looked like you were right; the thing was undetectable by mages from the outside but, once you were in, you were trapped unless the source was destroyed. The source could be just about anything, but it was most commonly whoever created the trap.

Jacob King?

“The source is usually the dude that created the trap,” Stretch said, “but I dunno how it could be in this case. He’s dead.”

“Unless he’s not,” you said. “He could’ve bound his soul to something in the house? Be using my magic to free it?”

“How do we find what he’s bound to?” Stretch asked.

“It’s like Harry Potter horcruxes,” you said. “It’d be something important to him, something his soul could get attached to.” Your voice was strained.

“They buried his daughter’s body with the family ring,” the tour guide said thoughtfully. “Everyone was amazed; it is absolutely unheard of to bury the family ring but he said his family’s hopes died with her.”

“Ding ding ding,” Stretch said. “Sounds like winner-winner-chicken-dinner.”

“Where is she buried?” Edge asked.

“In the garden,” the guide said. “Jacob wanted to be able to see her grave from his window.”

“Blech,” Stretch said, pulling a face. “That’s the grossest thing I’ve ever heard.”

“We can discuss how gross it is later,” Black said. “Please hurry. Eleanor is losing magic by the second.”

“Right. Of course. Babe, I’ll shortcut out there; you follow on foot so you don’t upchuck on the grave?” Stretch suggested.

“We’ll help dig!” Blue said.

“No,” Edge, Stretch, and Black all chorused in unison.

“Excuse me?” Blue asked, his bright blue eye lights flaring dangerously.

“Bro, we just have a system here and, no offense, but you’ve never worked in it. Just let us do our jobs, ok?” Stretch said.

“He’s right,” Edge said. “It’s not that you’re incapable, far from it, it’s just that we need the people that we are used to doing this with.”

Blue sighed. “Fine! But if you need us, we will be right here.”

Edge nodded curtly. “Do you have any shovels?” he asked the guide just before Stretch popped out of existence…

… And back in, outside. Lucky for them, he’d noticed the grave during their house tour so he’d been able to shortcut over. The stone was worn by age and there were flowers growing all around. It was actually really pretty. King Fluffybuns would probably really enjoy this place. That guy was a huge improvement over the queen of Underswap; she had LV from murdering children that fell into the Underground to try to break the barrier, but Asgore never had to do that here. 

Made Stretch wonder what the hell the Underswap version of you was up to. Maybe you didn’t even exist or your parents were alive so you weren’t nannying for other mage families from time to time to have a couch to sleep on. That’s why you knew Frisk here; her overworked father hired you to watch her and the two of you ended up breaking the barrier a few years after you left the job. You always said that it was all Frisk and her little gang of friends, but he knew better. The barrier was undetectable unless you could sense allimagic. Frisk would’ve never found it on her own; she needed you. Plus, you were far more powerful of a mage than them. There was no way that your magic didn’t help with the task. At the time, you were still with Oliver and he didn’t like monsters; Stretch suspected that had a lot to do with your firm insistence on shoving credit off on Frisk.

Well, for whatever reason, his version of you and Frisk (based on his talks with Sans, his Frisk was actually Chara) didn’t break the barrier. Instead, Chara fell into the Underground and well…

Stretch was just as afraid of knives and the ambassador as he was Temmies.

While he mused over the flowers, Edge seemed to be Getting Shit Done. The door to the garden burst open and Edge dashed out carrying shovels. The tour guide (gods, they should ask her name) was behind him with a third shovel. Edge handed him a spade when he arrived and the three of them began frantically digging.

In his earpiece, Stretch could hear that your breathing was getting more labored and Black’s voice was getting more frantic. He’d tuned out a bit when it came time for him to do physical labor, but it sounded like you were trying to give him and Mutt menial tasks to do to distract them.

There wasn’t any way that you actually thought breaking some of the runes would disrupt the spell.

Edge’s shovel struck wood first, a loud thunk alerting them that they’d dug deep enough. Stretch sighed and leaned back. “Babe, you know I really  _ dig _ this date, but I’m ready to  _ bury _ my head in some pillows and get some sleep.”

“Your sense of humor is  _ ghostly _ ,” Edge deadpanned.

Stretch waited to hear you laugh at the puns but you didn’t. He swallowed hard and looked up at Edge. The two of them exchanged a pained look and Stretch pulled your stats up on his phone. He hissed at how low your magic was, how high your body temperature was climbing, and how slow your heart rate was. You didn’t have much longer. “Hustle,” Stretch hissed, and Edge nodded and kept scooping up dirt. 

Only to stop at the sound of scraping from the other side of the coffin.

“Oh hell no,” Stretch said, scrambling backwards out of the hole.

He was answered by someone beating on the inside of the coffin. Edge climbed out too and dropped the shovel, instead calling up an attack. He pulled Stretch protectively behind him just in time for them to watch the coffin explode outwards.

“Holy shit!” the guide yelled, staggering backward and landing on her ass.

“Report!” Black barked.

“Uh…” Stretch tried, but the only word he had for what was happening was ‘zombie’ and he sort of didn’t think that was helpful. 

But what other word is there for a dead human blasting their way out of a coffin?

Though, usually zombies were super gross and dead, with oozing flesh falling off of them. This particular zombie looked perfectly preserved, like it had just fallen asleep in the coffin and happened to decide to wake up now. It was pretty and young, with hair that fell in curling tresses. It wore a powder blue dress and soft brown boots… And a ring with a glowing red ruby on one finger.

“Maybel,” Edge said calmly, “we need your father’s ring.”

The zombie looked up at Edge and laughed. Stretch shuddered and pressed more against his husband. He hated maniacal laughing.

Edge shot a bone attack at it, red bones tearing through its chest. It screamed and lunged at him, summoning up an attack of its own. Stretch felt the familiar buzz of your magic and backed away, non-existent stomach roiling in nausea. The thing had your magic. It was stealing your magic and using it to attack your friends!

He and Edge sidestepped the zombie easily. “Get inside!” Edge snarled, but Stretch rolled his eye lights. Yeah, sure, he was just going to leave his husband outside to fight the zombie alone. For sure.

Edge held out one hand and summoned a scythe. Stretch found himself giggling inappropriately. Humans always compared them to the grim reaper and here was his husband calling up a crimson scythe while wearing a soft pullover and jeans. He looked like the grim reaper on his day off.

The zombie charged him again. Edge easily dodged out of the way and swung the scythe. For a moment it looked like nothing had happened. The zombie stopped moving, made a gurgling sound, then collapsed to the ground. The head rolled away; clearly Edge had completely decapitated it. The body shook and jerked on the ground.

“Nice job, babe,” Stretch said. He scrambled forward to grab the ring off its hand, only for Edge to grab him and yank him back.

“Don’t,” he warned.

Stretch was about to deliver a scathing retort about how he was a big boy and didn’t need anyone to hold his hand when he crossed the street, but then the fucking zombie tried to grab his fucking hand.

Stretch wasn’t too proud to admit that he screamed like a small child and nearly teleported as far as way as monsterly possible, but at the last second he remembered that Edge was still holding onto him. Yeah, saving Ellie would probably be easier if Edge wasn’t puking while Black was lowkey panicking.

Before either of them could react, the zombie screamed again as a shovel crashed down on its hand. The end was sideways so that the sharp edge of the shovel crashed into the hand, completely disconnecting it off from the zombie. Stretch couldn’t tear his eye lights away as the zombie began to spasm on the ground. Hundreds of years of decay were suddenly applied to the body over the span of only a few seconds, and it was disturbing. Monsters dust and that’s terrifying ( _ Stretch saw Blue’s dust, his own dust, so many times, so many times _ ) but it turns out that it’s nothing compared to what happens to humans. Let’s just say that there’re smells and fluids and leave it at that.

When Stretch was finally able to look up from the disaster, the tour guide stood leaned over with her arms braced against her thighs, breathing hard. The shovel was on the ground in front of her. “What’s your name?” Stretch blurted out before he could stop himself.

She looked at him like he was exactly as crazy as he actually was, but she took in a shaky breath and answered, “Tara.”

“Stretch,” Stretch said, “and Edge.”

Edge was already moving away from Stretch and plucking the glowing ring from the pile and Stretch made a mental note to salt and burn those gloves. And make Edge wash his hands a lot before he was allowed to touch anything. Ever. And they were getting take out for at least a couple days while Edge’s hands to air out. And--

“Shit!” Black cursed emphatically, followed by a crashing noise.

“Report!” Edge barked. Stretch took a minute to appreciate how much his love was like Black. They really were quite a pair; Edge once told him that he thought he and Black could very happily live together platonically for the rest of their lives and may have if Edge hadn’t found Stretch and Black, Ellie. Hell, Edge’d been more worried about telling Black about his relationship with Stretch than he had been his own bro. He wouldn’t call it a ‘bromance’ but only because Edge made it clear that if he did so in any capacity that he would be sleeping on the couch for the same number of nights as the number of souls he said it to. 

Luckily he hadn’t tweeted it.

“Portal’s tryna kill us,” Mutt said.

“... Clarify,” Edge said.

“It’s shootin’ bullets at us and, uh…”

“It’s Eleanor’s magic,” Black said blankly. 

“Get out of there,” Edge ordered. “You can leave, yes?”

“Excuse you?” Black snarled. “I am not leaving her!”

“You’re not thinking rationally! You’re not leaving her permanently just--”

“Fuck you!”

“Ok, ok, how do we destroy the ring?” Stretch yelled over them. “We just need to get rid of it and it’ll, like, undo the trap or whatever right?”

“Magic,” Ellie groaned. “Blast of magic. All of you together; it’s gotta be strong.”

“Love--”

“Get up there,” she murmured. “All six of you Gaster blast it at the same time. Hurry.”

Stretch didn’t realize he was crying until Edge pulled him flush to his chest in a tight hug. He heard the unique sound of teleportation over the coms and Mutt and Black appeared in front of them. Stretch stifled a gasp. They looked terrible. Each of them were covered in oozing wounds where they’d clearly gotten hit with magic. Mutt wiped marrow from his forehead as he and Black hurried forward. “Where’s the damn thing?” Mutt asked, eye lights already strobing purple. Papyrus and Blue also staggered out, having heard the whole thing over the laptop and, boy, that had to have sucked with all the screaming and the zombie and everything.

Edge dropped it into the hole they dug and said, “On my count.” The courtyard whirred with magic as six huge draconic skulls hovered overhead. Stretch glanced around and confirmed that Tara had scurried back and was peeking from the doorway. He figured that all of the captains of the royal guard already checked that before ever firing up blasters; well, Stretch never had any combat training, so sue him.

“One,” Edge said gravely. “Two. Three.”

The entire courtyard erupted in volcanic heat, the blinding light of lasers momentarily whiting out Stretch’s vision. If he had skin he was sure the heat would melt it away. The ground shook as the lasers tore into the soil. 

Then it was over.

Edge started to lean over the hole to check the destruction, but Black pulled him back. Luckily, as it turned out, because a thick red smoke billowed up from the hole. Stretch usually didn’t find skulls unnerving or anything but even he had to admit that thick red smoke pouring out of an empty grave in the shape of a skull was pretty damn disturbing. “I’d, uh, say that did it, yeah?” he said.

Without replying, Black and Mutt both disappeared. Everyone else froze for a moment before reaching the silent mutual decision to return to the entryway of the house. They all gathered around the laptop and waited. Even Tara stood nearby with her hands clasped tightly together.

“Eleanor?” Black said, his voice a thread of panic. “Love, are you…” He trailed off, and Stretch didn’t like that one single bit. It was your job, sure, he got that, but gods you’re his best friend and he just knew one of these days he was gonna listen to you die over this laptop speaker.

“What’s happening?” Edge demanded, his calm demeanor cracking just a little. He adored you too and he did not do well when his people were in danger.

Gods, he hoped you were still in danger. Not, you know…

_ Dust _ .

Stretch subconsciously glanced at Blue, grounding himself in the fact that his bro was alive, was here, wasn’t dead.

It took Stretch entirely too long to remember that there were cameras. He cursed to himself and opened up the feed. He braced himself to see you dead, unconscious, bleeding, but he was surprised. Mutt’s camera was focused on the archway or, rather, where the archway had been. It was crumbled into a huge pile of rubble and was that a fucking demonic hand sticking out from under it?

You and Black’s cameras were a little more confusing. They weren’t showing much. Stretch leaned in, squinting at the screen, trying to figure out what the hell he was looking at, only to feel a hand on his shoulder gently pulling him back. “She’s alright, brother,” Blue said gently.

“How can you…?” Stretch trailed off as the camera angle shifted and… oh! You were kissing! Apparently you cut Black off with a kiss and now you were leaning away from each other. You… Didn’t look great. You were unbelievably pale and had such dark circles under your eyes that you may as well have had two black eyes, but you were alive and you were smiling.

“Next time, we would all greatly appreciate it if you wait to make out until after we have confirmed that everyone is still alive,” Edge said dryly.

You rolled your eyes before flipping the camera off. “I’m fine. Really. And we’re counting this as a ghost tour. Mark it off the list.”

**FEBRUARY 21ST**

**Sans + Ellie: 75 items complete**

**Edge + Stretch: 77 items complete**

Even though the world was slowly (very slowly!) becoming more accepting of monsters, it was safe to say that no other sixth-grader had over a dozen monsters crowding into the seats of a school auditorium to see their rendition of Shrek the Musical. The monster ambassador was set to play the gingerbread man and the whole skeletal clan was invited, along with the royal family and a few other select monsters. Undyne and Alphys were there, of course, and Mettaton even took a break from his hectic filming schedule to come for opening night. 

You were firmly sat between Stretch and Sans, both of whom were oddly fidgety. Edge already had a hold on one of Stretch’s hands and you finally grabbed the other just to stop his incessant tapping. Sans kept jiggling his leg, shaking the whole row. 

“What’s wrong with you?” you whispered to him.

He glanced at you, then sighed. “I dislike many of the humans here.”

Your eyebrows shot up. “How do you know any of the humans here?”

“I assisted with a few of the school festivities on behalf of the Embassy. And Toriel asked me to help fill in when neither she nor Ralph were available.”

That made sense; Frisk’s dad, Ralph, was an important member of the Mage Council and was often too busy to help with day-to-day tasks. Honestly, you were grateful that Toriel took to caring for Frisk so much; the kid had been on their own for a while and you knew first hand how much it sucked to grow up without parents. As it was, Frisk still had their dad, but now they also had Toriel and Asgore, not to mention the rest of the monsters.

You glanced down at Stretch’s fidgeting hand and mentally corrected to  _ most _ of the monsters.

Your brain unstuck and suddenly reminded you of what you just said. You tried to swallow a surprised laugh, but ended up snorting loudly enough to attract the attention of all of the skeletons, as well as several humans. Sans looked at you like you’d lost your damn mind. “Sorry,” you choked, “but babe: you never told me you were a PTO mom.”

Sans squawked indignantly and you laughed. The woman in front of you spun around and stared daggers at you. You held up a hand of apology but her eyes widened in recognition. “You!” she hissed at Sans.

Sans, in turn, narrowed his sockets. “Debbie.”

“What are you doing here?” she growled. “As I’ve said before, you don’t have a child!”

“And as I’ve told you before, I am here as a representative of both the Dreemur family and monsterkind,” Sans said coolly. 

You stiffened and hoped that you weren’t going to have to cut a bitch in the middle of a middle school play.

Debbie sniffed. “It looks like there are plenty of monsters here. Too many for my taste, in fact.”

Yup. You were gonna have to cut a bitch.

You opened your mouth to rip her apart but were interrupted before you could speak. “Deborah!” a voice full of false cheer called. You whipped around and saw Toriel leaning forward to join the conversation. “How are you?”

“Tori, I--”

“That’s great,” Toriel interrupted breezily. “I heard Connor is playing one of the dwarves! That’s wonderful. Does he even speak on stage?” She sounded kind and interested, but you didn’t miss the underlying bite and insult.

Debbie didn’t either. “He was cheated out of the main role by that monster,” she growled.

Toriel laughed. “I’m sure that you’re not implying that you harbor any ill will towards monsters? Because, if you were, I would be forced to report you to the school board. You know about their zero tolerance policy, yes? I would hate for Connor to have to switch schools.”

“You wouldn’t!”

“I just want a safe place for all of our children, dear.”

The woman seethed but turned back around. Toriel grinned at you then went right back to talking to Papyrus like none of that happened. You placed a soothing hand on Sans’s arm, pushing a little comforting healing magic as you did. “You okay, babe?” you asked softly.

“Yes, I’m fine,” in his ‘I’m absolutely not fine but please don’t make me talk about it’ voice.

“Want me to kick her ass?” you asked softer. “Because it wouldn’t even be a problem.”

Sans chuckled a little bit and shook his head. “I’m sure it wouldn’t, but I do not need you to fight a random PTO mother for my honor.”

“You just let me know,” you said. “I’ll fight for your honor any time, boo.”

And, you know, sometimes random floor trash magically flies into a woman’s hair during a middle school play, when it’s too dark for her to notice. And, maybe if that were to happen, you’d just snap a quick pic for your boyfriend. All totally hypothetical, of course.

What a way to mark off item 13: attend a play.


	3. Puns & Head Injuries [March]

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The end of the competition is nearing as Stretch and Ellie face their toughest challenge yet: working out with their boys.

**MARCH 1ST**

**Sans + Ellie: 81 items complete**

**Edge + Stretch: 79 items complete**

“Babe I don’t think--”

“Hush,” Sans said without looking up from the paperwork he was pouring over. “Now, how much do you think Jupiter will need to care for Danny Butterman for the remainder of the bird’s life?”

“Sans--”

“Did you bring the figures of what you spend on him weekly?” Sans asked. “That way, we can extrapolate--”

“Sans!” you said louder.

He finally looked up at you. “Yes?”

“I’m almost positive that when the list says ‘plan your future’ it doesn’t mean that we help one another make our wills,” you told him. 

He huffed. “What else could it mean?”

You stared at him. You knew your jaw was hanging open a little bit, but all hells, how could he be this dense? You leaned forward and grabbed his hand, forcing him to drop the pen. “I think it means talk about stuff like…” you trailed off as a sudden wave of nausea and worry washed over you. The two of you really never talked about this stuff, moving in together and marriage and families; was it because Sans didn’t want to? Was he being intentionally obtuse?

Did he not really want a future with you?

Sans watched you quietly while you tried to figure out what to say. Maybe… Maybe you shouldn’t say anything? Wills were useful, after all. If you didn’t have a legal will, your ancestral land would revert back to the Mage Council and you didn’t want them to have it, not after how they’d treated you and the memory of your parents.

“Love?” Sans asked.

“Um… You know what? Nevermind. Wills are fine.”

Sans looked at you like he was going to say something, then went back to the paperwork. You swallowed back your disappointment and calculated how much you spent a week on caring for your bird.

**MARCH 11TH**

**Sans + Ellie: 84 items complete**

**Edge + Stretch: 84 items complete**

“Stretch, I am 100% sure that this is not what the list meant when it said to ‘workout together’,” you whined, because if you were going to have to do a million reps of what the hell ever those floor-to-jumping things were, then your bestie better believe he was going to get his skeletal ass out here and do them, too.

Stretch lowered his sunglasses and took a sip of the iced lemonade that he was currently enjoying in the beach chair that he drug into the Embassy gym from somewhere. “Excuse me,” he said, “you dare to question my rule-following?”

“Umm… Yeah?” you gritted out as Sans paused to tap the middle of your lower back again. 

“Keep your spine straight!” he said cheerfully. “I’d hate for you to injure that beautiful back.”

“Do not even try to flirt with me while you’re also torturing me,” you growled at him, but he just laughed and scooted back over to his own little workout space. Edge was valiantly ignoring all of you and doing some stretches (heh).

“Mmm… Damn baby, I always loved you in those shorts,” Stretch catcalled, which is what he’d been doing the entire time the rest of you were working out. Edge gave him a withering look but otherwise ignored him. “I bet I’ll love ‘em even more on the floor, you know what I mean?” he yelled, followed by a whistle.

“That’s it!” you snarled. You stomped over to Stretch, whose face was shifting from amused to terrified with every step.

“El, bestie, we can talk about this! No need to do anything rash!” he said, holding his hands out placatingly. You thought he even flickered a little like he aborted a shortcut as you approached.

You grabbed his arm and roughly (not too roughly; his HP was shit, after all) yanked him to his feet and drug him over to where Edge and Sans both stood slack jawed. “Here!” you hissed, pushing him at them. “I’m dripping in sweat, muscles that I never even knew I had hurt, and I smell like a linebacker that hasn’t showered in a month! This delicate flower hasn’t shed a single drop of magic. Make him work out! It’s my turn for a damn break!” Once you were sure you had their attention, you gave him another shove so that he fell into his husband’s arms, then stomped back over to claim his chair and his lemonade. You almost stripped off the tank top to the sports bra underneath, gods knew that Stretch and Edge had seen you in less clothes fairly frequently due to your propensity for rib injuries on the job, but you figured that they wouldn’t really appreciate the view. Not to mention that your Swapfell love wouldn’t particularly enjoy sharing the view.

You managed to calm a bit while the two former captains of the fucking royal guard began whipping Stretch into shape. You didn’t miss that Sans always had a phalange on him to keep him from shortcutting away, even as they made him do the jumping things. Stretch whined and groveled to try to get out of it, but, unfortunately for him, those two really were dedicated to “improving the health” of those they love and he wasn’t getting out unscathed either.

Served him right. 

You couldn’t help but whistle at Sans when he leaned over to do a particularly difficult stretch (heh) that Stretch couldn’t seem to pull off. He shot you a look over his shoulder that said he didn’t appreciate your input, so you shrugged and went back to sipping the lemonade. 

You gave it a few minutes before you yelled, “Hey babe! Are your legs tired?” He didn’t even look at you, but you didn’t stop. “Because you’ve been running through my head all day!” 

Stretch laughed, but it was immediately replaced by a groan when Edge smacked his spine to straighten him up. Sans, once again, shot you a warning look before going back to his workout. 

You never were good at heeding warnings. 

“Hey! Hey, Sans!” you called. He grudgingly looked at you, unable to resist in case you actually needed something. Poor sap. “Did you hear the latest health report?” You waited long enough for him to narrow his sockets at you. “It said you should really increase your intake of vitamin ME!” Before he could even react, you kept pushing your luck. “Do you do karate? Because your body is really kicking!”

You got to experience firsthand how Stretch felt when you marched over to him as Sans rounded on you. You squeaked and pushed yourself back in the chair. “Wanna go for a long romantic walk on the treadmill?” you giggled as you threw yourself off the chair and tried to dart off to the side to avoid his grabby hands. 

You ducked behind one of the punching bags and called out, “Is your tank top felt? No? Would you like it to be?” You laughed and moved again, trying to make it to the other side of the workout room, but there was the pop of a shortcut and strong, familiar arms wrapped around your waist. 

You let out a peal of laughter and tried to fight him off, but he held you tight against his chest. Your breath caught when you felt hot breath whisper against your ear, “You know, it’s your turn to spot me while I do squats. I spotted you the second you walked in.” You laughed and wiggled in his arms and demanded that he let go, but he simply laughed too. “It seems that it’s time for us to leave,” he called to Edge and Stretch.

“Yeah, yeah, go wild, kids,” Stretch wheezed.

“See you at work,” Edge said. Then, after a quick glance at Stretch, he added, “Later. Much later.”

“Babe!” Stretch squawked as Edge threw him over his shoulder and headed for the door. You laughed as the gym faded out around you, quietly replaced with the bathroom at Sans’s house. He was kissing you before you could react, getting rid of the tank top that smelled so awful. 

He pulled back for a second like he was going to say something, but you took the chance to jump first, “You know, that workout wasn’t the only thing getting my heartrate up,” you said in your best faux-seductive voice. Sans groaned softly and put his forehead against yours. “Wanna be my special push up partner? We should--”

He pressed a hand over your mouth. “Enough,” he said, but you didn’t miss the laughter in his eye lights. “Now that we took care of item seven--” work out together-- “how would you like to take care of item 18?”

It took you a second to remember what item 18 was, and when you did, you felt yourself grinning under the palm of his hand. You licked his hand just to hear him yelp and pull it back, then you leaned up and kissed him again. “Item 18,” you said softly against his teeth, “take a shower together. Sounds perfect.”

Later, much later, when Sans tucked you into his bed as he headed off to work, you had to admit that this might be the first time you’d ever been glad you worked out and that you were incapable of heeding warnings.

**MARCH 16TH**

**Sans + Ellie: 87 items complete**

**Edge + Stretch: 88 items complete**

“Intrigued,” Sans said in your earpiece.

You shifted in the tree you were staked out in and groaned. “He’s right. Seven down’s intrigued.”

“Why’m I helpin’ ya with this?” Stretch muttered, but you heard the scratching of pen on paper as he filled in the crossword puzzle that you and Sans were solving together. The mission was pretty boring--just a dumb slime-based alliumede that was hiding out in the drains of the city. The thing was attracted to magic, so setting out a couple monsters and a mage in different areas of the city should draw it out. Besides that, it was just a waiting game.

Which is why Sans suggested working on item 35, ‘solve a crossword puzzle together.’ He bullied Stretch into finding one for you and reading the clues over the com. Stretch was, understandably, hesitant to help you win a contest against him and his husband, but he was still begrudgingly doing it.

“Because this mission is boring and you do not want our minds to wander,” Sans answered.

“Because you love us,” you added.

“‘Cause ya hate me on a personal level,” Mutt grumbled.

The three of you laughed and Stretch continued with the clues. You were pretty proud of yourself for getting 23 across ‘star-crossed’, but Sans pretty much knocked out the rest of the puzzle. Mutt contributed a couple of soft answers and Stretch even answered one. 

In your defense, you got distracted halfway through when you had to clamber out of your tree and take out the slime thing that crawled out of the sewer. You were incredibly grateful that Devon agreed to bless some salt for you; you weren’t sure normal salt would’ve done it, and this thing tended to thrive on water. Holy salt though? That left the thing screaming, burning, and shriveling while Sans finished the puzzle.

You smiled, ready to go home and mark item 35 off the list.

**MARCH 25TH**

**Sans + Ellie: 90 items complete**

**Edge + Stretch: 92 items complete**

You ducked behind the brick building, breathing hard. You squeezed your eyes shut and tried to control your frantic breathing. Your ribs ached and your stomach churned from the running. You ran so damn much. Surely it was enough? You peeked around the corner and began thrashing when someone grabbed you and pulled you back. You tried to scream but a hand clamped over your mouth before you could. “Ellie chill! It’s me!” Stretch hissed in your ear.

He let you go when you stopped thrashing around and you rounded on him. “Holy donuts, Stretch! What were you thinking?!”

“What was I thinking? What were you thinking? You were just… peeking out of the alley! Where anyone could see you!”

“I was looking!”

“You really think we’ll see ‘em coming? They’re--”

“Former Captains of the Fucking Royal Guard, I know,” you muttered. “I know.”

The soft splashing of a footstep in a puddle made you both freeze. You made to grab Stretch, but he was gone before you got a hand on him. “You bitch,” you muttered, then pressed yourself against the wall. 

“You know, I thought I trained you better, my dear,” Sans said from somewhere above you. You gasped and tried to move, but a bony hand grabbed your wrist and yanked you against a very solid chest. There was a pop and Sans appeared in front of you. “You know better than to quit moving when pursued!”

You jutted your chin out at him, your eyes brimming with determination. “You’ll never catch Stretch,” you told him. “You may take me down, but Stretch will live on!”

“Sure, sure. Except for the tracker that I planted on his hoodie while the two of you were busy arguing!” Sans declared. “Edge, go get him. I will take care of this one.”

Edge let go of you and pushed you into Sans’s arms. You took that split second where neither of them had hands on you to duck and roll to the side, then dash out of the alley and onto the main street. You knew you were safe here; they couldn’t follow you out into the main drag. You let yourself breathe as you tried to disappear into the crowd, hoping to lose them in the traffic of the city.

You knew you couldn’t stay on the main road forever; you’d eventually have to venture back into the dark alleys, but hopefully you’d have lost them by then. You looked around casually, but you didn’t see either of them. Of course, you wouldn’t see them, not if they didn’t want you to.

You’d have to risk it.

You dove into one of the side alleys and dashed along it as quickly as you could, keeping to the side of the building as much as possible. You listened for the tell-tale pops of shortcuts or the sound of footsteps, but you didn’t hear anything except for your own breath and steps. 

You rounded a corner and grinned as you saw your destination: Grillby’s. It was in nearly the center of the city and if you could just make it there, you’d be safe. You began running again, fighting against the stitch in your side. 

Suddenly, Sans was in front of you. “Ha!” he said, but you side stepped his arms and kept moving. You heard the pop of teleportation again and dove to the other side, just barely dodging his skeletal hands. Grillby’s was only a couple of blocks away. You could make it! You were going to make it!

Edge jumped out of one of the side streets only inches in front of you. You screamed and back pedaled, trying to get away from him, but the ground wasn’t even underneath your feet. You tripped, staggered, and fell, something hard hitting your head and you blacked out.

You sat up only a minute later, dazed and with a pounding headache. Sans appeared next to you, horror written all over his face. Edge looked equally terrified and was frantically talking to someone one his phone. You groaned and rubbed the side of your head where you apparently tripped and slammed it into a brick building. “Ouch,” you said.

“Love? Are you alright?” Sans asked. “Edge! She’s awake!”

Edge hurried over to you and knelt beside Sans. “Ellie. I am so sorry. I did not mean to frighten you and I certainly did not mean for you to fall. I should have caught you.”

You blinked at him. “Not your fault,” you said, although your voice sounded way too loud. You winced.

“I think you have a concussion,” Sans told you.

There was another pop, so loud that you jumped, and Stretch joined the other two skeletons in kneeling on the ground. “Hey El,” he said. “Heard ya bumped your head.”

“I fell into a wall,” you told him.

He nodded. “Here, let me see.” You leaned into his hand and let him touch the wound, wincing as it sent waves of pain through you. “Yep, it’s a concussion. I can heal ya up and make sure your brain ain’t bleeding, but you’re still gonna need to follow concussion protocols for the night, ok?”

You couldn’t for the life of you remember what those protocols were, but Sans answered for you. “We will,” he said, holding your hand in his.

Stretch took a breath, then pressed glowing green hands to your head. It made your mind swim even more than it already was. You tried to maintain some kind of coherent train of thought, but it was worse than when you got drunk at the Halloween party. Everything was fuzzy and confusing and you just wanted to go to sleep. You sleepily reached out for Sans and were rewarded with him pulling you into his arms. You snuggled against him and said, “Caught you.”

“Caught me?” he asked. You missed the humor in his voice.

“Yep. Won hide and seek.”

Sans sighed. “Yes, love, you won.” There was a beat, then you were up in the air. “We are never playing hide and go seek ever again.”

Edge answered from somewhere behind you. “Yes, I agree that one time was more than enough.”

“At least we can mark it off the list,” Stretch said. “Too bad we ‘bout killed El to make it happen.”

“That’s not funny,” Sans and Edge said in unison.

“Ok, ok, sorry. She’s gonna be fine.”

You snuggled closer to Sans. You  _ were _ gonna be fine, you were sure of it. Plus, you won.


	4. Winner-Winner-Chicken-Dinner

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A winner is declared...?

**APRIL 2ND**

**Sans + Ellie: 98 items complete**

**Edge + Stretch: 100 items complete**

“Bull shit.” You leaned over the phone Stretch smugly shoved into your hand and narrowed your eyes. “There is no fucking way you got them all done already.”

Stretch grinned. “Admit it, Ellie, Edge and I are the superior couple.”

“I. Will. Never.”

Stretch shrugged. “You’ve got your evidence right there.”

“Wait!” you said, swiping through the pictures. “I don’t see a trip to wine country here! You didn’t go to wine country.”

Stretch crossed his arms. “We bought a ton of wine and drank it. You know we can’t just leave Ebbott whenever the fuck we want.”

“Interesting. So you didn’t complete the list but you tried to pretend like you did.” You leaned back and put your hands behind your head, testing the structural integrity of the cafe’s chair.

“We did the next best thing!”

“Did you or did you not visit wine country, Stretch?” Your best friend (and currently, most bitter enemy) was completely indignant, but he couldn’t talk his way around the fact that he didn’t visit wine country and thus violated the rules. “You know what that means, bud.”

“Noooo,” he groaned.

“Sans and I get to create two new couple’s activities for you to do,” you said, a maniacal grin on your face. “I will consult with my beloved bonefriend and get back to you in a maximum of three to five business days.”

“You’re insufferable,” Stretch said, banging his skull softly on the table.

“Yup,” you said smugly. “I’m thinking painting each other’s faces like clowns.”

“You fucking wouldn’t.”

“You fucking know I would, bitch.”

**Sans + Ellie: 98 items complete**

**Edge + Stretch:** ~~**100** ~~ **98 items complete**


	5. Winner-Winner-Chicken-Dinner (pt. 2)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A winner is actually declared.

**APRIL 12TH**

**Sans + Ellie: 100 items complete**

**Edge + Stretch: 100 items complete**

“Come on!” you moaned. “What are the chances we’d finish our lists on the same damn day?”

“With how many we did together?” Stretch asked. “Hold on, I can--”

“I don’t actually want to know!” you snapped. “But how do we decide who won?”

“We could compare the time that we took our last pictures?” Sans suggested.

“That’s a no go,” Stretch said. “Our last one was item 71 and we didn’t take a pic for obvious reasons.”

You shuddered at that particular mental image. “Well, then what do we do?”

The four of you sat around the table in Edge and Stretch’s kitchen looking a little perplexed. When you and Stretch started all of this eight months ago, you didn’t make any rules about this particular outcome. “Maybe… Maybe everyone wins?” Stretch suggested meekly. The other three of you boo-ed him viciously. You went so far as to throw one of the delicious cookies that Edge made at him.

“Well, then how do we decide who won?” Stretch grumbled. To Edge and Sans’s horror, he picked up the cookie from the floor and popped it into his mouth petulantly.

“I think we can help with that,” a voice said from the kitchen doorway. Everyone jumped and Sans nearly fired off an attack. 

Red and Comic sauntered into the kitchen carrying some sort of book, both ignoring the myriad of bone attacks flying around the room. “I thought I made it clear to you that you are to knock at our home,” Edge growled at his brother.

Red shrugged and stole a handful of cookies. “Knew the mage an’ her boytoy were over today. We were pretty sure ya weren’ fuckin’ the honey bun in the kitchen today.”

“Gross,” you muttered, but everyone ignored you in favor of the book that Red slapped down on the table while Comic retrieved a couple of beers from the fridge and tossed one to him.

“What is this?” Edge asked.

“Oh, it’s the proof o’ who won your little contest,” Red said casually.

“I swear if you have pictures of us--” Stretch began, his eye lights bleeding orange, but he was interrupted by Red and Comic laughing. 

“Listen, there ain’t nothin’ in the world I wan’ less than to see ya bumpin’ uglies with my bro. Just look at the damn book.”

Edge cautiously opened it and the three of you were surprised to be greeted by… A scrapbook? The first page had a huge heart on it with pictures of Red and Sans in it, the words “Our Love Journey” scrawled underneath. Edge looked up at his brother in surprise. “The hell is this?” he asked.

“You two scrapbook?” you gasped, trying to force your glee back down. If you were too happy, you could be sure you would never see another page of it.

“Fuck no,” Comic said. “We got Paps to make it for us. Needed it. For proof.”

“Right,” Stretch said. “Proof. Proof y’all into some weeb shit.”

“Take it back, honey bun,” Red growled threateningly.

You rolled your eyes and turned the page. Your eyes widened when you saw the title: “Item One: Make a Blanket Fort.” It contained pictures of Red and Comic piling up pillows and blankets (clearly borrowed from Papyrus) in their living room, chairs scooted together so that the blankets were draped over the chairs. The photo at the bottom of the page was actually pretty cute; it featured Comic and Red laying in the blanket fort together, a candid shot of them laughing about something. Cute.

“Wait,” Sans said. “Is this… Did you…?”

“Did we do ya dumb challenge?” Red asked. “Yes.”

“An’ did we finish it a month ago?” Comic added. “Also yes. So, which of the two of ya finished first today don’ matter. We proved we were the top couple a whole month ago.”

“All hells, bro,” Red said. “Took ya long enough. Constant disappointment to me.”

You rolled your eyes and pulled the scrapbook towards yourself. You and Stretch crowded together, turning the pages slowly, but the two of them were right: there were pictures of them doing every item on the list. Even the saucy items had some sort of evidence they’d been completed, like a picture of the bubble bath sitting on the side of the bathtub or a list of rooms in their house checked off. “Did that one in one day,” Red said fondly, peeking over your shoulder.

“Gross,” you repeated. 

“Wait!” Stretch cried. “Did you only adopt your cat to win the competition?”

“Ain’t my fault my bro brought that beast over an’ asked us ta watch it,” Red said with a shrug. “But nah, Ozzy made himself an essential part of the family.”

“I don’t wanna know,” Stretch said.

“So,” Comic said, casually plopping himself on Edge’s counter, probably just to watch his socket twitch, “looks like we’re the superior couple in this family.”

“No way,” you said.

“You didn’t tell us you were participating! That’s cheating!” Stretch said.

“Aw, honey bun, that ain’t in the rules,” Red said with a grin.

“How did you even know about this?” Edge asked.

Comic’s cheeks turned blue, but Red answered. “Like y’all ain’t been tellin’ everyone in the world ‘bout it? You had a Halloween party in December, for fuck’s sake!”

The four of you looked around the table, but you knew when you were beat. “Fine,” Sans ground out. “You two are the superior couple. For now. But we have four months to prepare and you had better believe you will be destroyed in next year’s competition!”

“Bring it on, plum pudding,” Red said.

“Come on!” Sans said to the four of you, standing so fast his chair fell back. “We have some planning to do.”


	6. Epilogue [A Victor's Spoils]

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The winners claim their prize.

**APRIL 19TH**

**Epilogue**

“This is too much to ask of us, brother,” Edge gritted out, staring at the monstrosity that his bro was showing him. 

“Really? Sans talked me down ta this,” Red said fondly.

“I still can’t believe you went to wine country without anyone knowing,” you grumbled. “And I’m not hanging that in my bedroom.”

Red shrugged. “Well, only one of ya has to, so I guess yer lover’ll be takin’ that bullet.”

“Please don’t call him that. That word skeeves me out,” you said.

Speaking of skeeved out… Somehow, the wonder twins had talked the rest of you into agreeing that the superior couple should get to choose a prize. Leave it to Comic and Red to pick the world’s worst prize in the form of a huge painting. Of them. It was just barely censored so you don’t see anything too untoward, but it was definitely not an angle you ever wanted to see of either of them. The prize? Each of the losing couples had to hang it in their bedrooms until a new winner was declared.

You silently wondered what they had on your beloved boyfriend that made him agree to this.

“Well, I guess we’ll just never have sex in that bed again,” Stretch said. “Sorry, babe. It’s been real.”

“Red--” Edge began, but Red cut him off with raucous laughter.

“Sorry, but we both know the honey bun ain’t goin’ celebate for a year.”

“I hate you,” Stretch deadpanned.

“We all hate him,” you said. “Join the club. We have t-shirts. And shivs.”

Sans looked Red in the eye lights with angrily narrowed sockets. “I cannot wait to destroy you.” He hefted the painting up in one arm and grabbed your hand with the other, leading you towards the door.

“Hope that works out for ya!” Red called after you. “Enjoy the painting!”

“So we sleep at my house now, yeah?” you asked softly.

“Just until we win this thing next time, yes.”

“Well, I’m sure the cats will enjoy having mommy and daddy around more.”

“Kinky,” Sans said softly, then kissed you gently and teleported both of you to his bedroom. You grabbed the painting and stashed it firmly outside, hoping to get one last hurrah in Sans’s bed before you spent the next year sleeping at your house.

Besides, you had a double homicide to plan.


End file.
